Lesson 1 - The Basics

This site is for beginning Acol bridge players.

To play bridge offline you need 4 players, who play in two pairs.  The players sit round a table, with partners sitting opposite each other.  Generally the playing positions are known as North, South, East and West with N/S forming one partnership and E/W forming the other partnership.

The aim is to win the game for your partnership.

The game is played using a standard pack of 52 playing cards.  At the start of the game the person designated as the dealer deals all the cards, so that each player holds 13 cards in their hands.

Each player sorts their cards into their suits.  The suits rank in this order - spades is the highest ranking, next comes hearts, then diamonds and then clubs is the lowest ranking of the suits.

Before the game starts, each player adds up the number of High Card Points (HCPs) in their hand.  Counting 4 points for each ace held, 3 points for each king held, 2 points for each queen held and 1 point for each jack held.

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